Category: Latin America

Symbiotics, a Switzerland-based for-profit investment intermediary, recently issued bonds for Coopeservidores, a Costa Rican savings and credit cooperative, in the amount of USD 12.5 million; Fusion Microfinance, an Indian microfinance institution (MFI), in the amount of USD 7 million; and Suryoday Microfinance Private Limited (Suryoday), another Indian MFI, in the amount of USD 6.8 million.

Consorcio de Asistencia al Microemprendedor (CAMESA), a Mexico-based, deposit-taking microfinance institution (MFI), recently raised MXN 200 million (USD 13 million) through its first bond issuance to support the expansion of its lending services.

Two microfinance investment vehicles, Triodos Microfinance Fund and Triodos Fair Share Fund, recently made a debt investment of unspecified amount in Promerica Financial Corporation (Promerica Group), a commercial bank based in Nicaragua. Triodos Investment Management, a subsidiary of Triodos Bank of the Netherlands, manages both funds. Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), the Dutch development bank; and Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG), a German development bank, also participated in the investment with unspecified amounts of debt finance.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the US-based World Bank Group, recently announced an agreement to provide a loan of USD 50 million to Banco Continental, a commercial bank established in Paraguay in 1980.

The Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) Group, has announced that it is accepting applications for the 2015 Inter-American Awards for Financial and Entrepreneurial Innovation, which is intended to recognize the achievements of institutions that support financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean.

During May 2015, Viennese asset manager C-Quadrat Asset Management USD 6 million worth of credits via the two Vision Microfinance funds to unspecified microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Armenia, Colombia, Georgia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Tajikistan and Paraguay. Of this total, C-Quadrat Asset Management invested USD 500,000 in the microfinance institution based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Founded in 2001, this institution targets micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and provides services to approximately 3,200 clients.

“The Global Findex Database 2014: Measuring Financial Inclusion Around the World;” by Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Leora Klapper, Dorothe Singer and Peter Van Oudheusden; published by the World Bank; April 2015; 88 pages; available at http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/globalfindex

The World Bank’s Global Findex Database 2014 indicates that between 2011 and 2014, 700 million people became accountholders for the first time at banks, via other financial institutions and with mobile money service providers, reducing the number of unbanked individuals by 20 percent.

CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), a US-based nonprofit policy and research center devoted to worldwide growth of financial access, is searching for financial service providers with whom to partner to increase customer centricity within the providers’ systems.

During the year ending December 2014, the Impulse Microfinance Investment Fund (Impulse Fund), which is managed by Belgium’s Incofin Investment Management (Incofin), sold its equity stakes in India-based Grameen Koota and the Mexican operations of El Salvador-based Apoyo Integral Inversiones, according to a recent announcement by Incofin.

The Multilateral Investment Fund, a member of the US-based IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) Group, has donated USD 1.2 million to fund a collaborative project with the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies, an association of Latin American and Caribbean central banks (also known by its Spanish acronym CEMLA).

The Luxembourg-based eco.business Fund, which was launched in 2014, announced recently that it has lent USD 10 million to Banco Davividenda Costa Rica, a unit of Colombia’s Bolivar Group, for on-lending to companies that work in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and are certified for their sustainability and contribution to biodiversity by entities such as the Germany-based FairTrade International or the US-based Rainforest Alliance.

Summary of Event: This conference will include panels on topics such as green real estate and sustainable urban development; renewable energy and energy infrastructure; sustainable agriculture; and the role of environmental, social and governance factors in investment decisions.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the US-based World Bank Group that offers financial services to businesses and governments in developing countries with the aim of increasing economic growth, recently announced that it has lent USD 40 million to Banco Internacional, a commercial bank in Ecuador.

CAF Development Bank of Latin America, a Venezuela-based multilateral financial institution that was formerly known as the Corporacion Andina de Fomento, recently partnered with Telesalud de Venezuela, a telemedicine firm that offers health services in rural and other underserved areas in Latin America, to pilot a health microinsurance project in Ecuador.

This report highlights various barriers and opportunities in providing financial services to older people and helping younger people plan for old age, focusing on middle-income countries, in particular Colombia.

The US-based non-profit venture fund Acumen, along with the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an initiative of US-based Clinton Foundation, and the British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company Unilever recently partnered to launch a three-year, minimum USD 10 million Enhanced Livelihoods Investment Initiative (ELII) that aims to boost the economic development of approximately 300,000 smallholder farmers in Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean [1].